June 18, 2008

Visit mycoke.com, enter, and click Beijing 2008 to see Coca Cola's cool Flash graphics, downloads, and games celebrating the Olympics. And you know how much I love the Olympics. See all the commemorative Coke cans with logos in different languages, download wallpaper with themes from various countries, decorate your own Coke bottle, and more.

How do you find such fun and cool stuff? I'm a big fan of the Olympics and yes I also love Coke. (I don't drink coffee so I have to get my caffeine somewhere, right?)Coca-Cola didn't skimp on this little project. They never do. Leave it to them to create something so innovative. I can't resist designing one of my own.

When Coca-Cola first came to China in the 1920's, they were searching for Chinese characters that approximated the sounds of, amazingly enough, "Coca-Cola". However, Chinese being the language that it is, various symbols that have the same or very similar sounds do NOT translate as having the same meaning; when well-meaning Chinese shopkeepers (without company approval) put up signs with the syllables approximating "Coca-Cola", the symbols they chose translated as "Bite The Wax Tadpole" (among other things).

Needless to say, the company has chosen symbols that sound like "Coca-Cola" that mean "It Brings Refreshment".